In a 1987 research report, Analytical Research Labs and Dr. Paul Eck defined a vegetarian as a person who eats animal protein fewer than three times a week or, more definitively, a person who has developed an aversion to meat protein, particularly red meat. The report calls that definition arbitrary. It was built on several thousand hair mineral profiles of vegetarians, and its first conclusion is that body chemistry can determine food preferences.
The lab’s adrenal burnout document describes the order. In a person with burnout, meat protein can cause heaviness, sluggish digestion, gas and bloating. At first that happens only with red meat; as the condition progresses, the same occurs with poultry and fish, until a totally vegetarian diet is what the person prefers. That document calls the extent to which a person avoids meat protein “an excellent criterion” for measuring how far burnout has gone.
The Patterns That Showed Up Most Often
The research report ranked the tissue mineral patterns in these profiles from most common to least common. The cutoffs are the lab’s own.
| Pattern | ARL cutoff on the hair test |
|---|---|
| Slow oxidation pattern | Calcium and magnesium elevated relative to sodium and potassium |
| Adrenal insufficiency pattern | Sodium under 10 mg% and potassium under 3 mg% |
| Elevated copper | Copper over 4.0 mg%, or a zinc-to-copper ratio under 5:1 |
| Low zinc | Zinc under 12 mg% |
| Low phosphorus | Phosphorus under 12 mg% |
| Four low electrolytes | Calcium under 40, magnesium under 6, sodium under 25 and potassium under 10 mg% |
| Adrenal burnout trend | Sodium-to-potassium ratio under 2.3:1 |
A companion bulletin, Vegetarianism: Is It the Right Choice?, reduces it to one picture: the most consistent vegetarian profile is a slow oxidizer with a high copper level and an inverted sodium-to-potassium ratio.
Why Meat Protein Gets Harder to Digest
The burnout document lists distaste for meat protein among the symptoms of burnout and gives the reason as severely impaired digestion. As a person moves toward burnout, it says, hydrochloric acid production decreases and the ability to digest animal protein diminishes with it. Copper toxicity and zinc deficiency also interfere with the pancreas’s secretion of trypsin and chymotrypsin, which meat protein requires. The research report adds that zinc is required for the pancreatic enzymes carboxypeptidase A and B, so a zinc deficiency results in a digestive enzyme deficiency.
Zinc also regulates appetite. The burnout document calls zinc specifically depleted in burnout and essential in appetite regulation: as zinc diminishes, loss of taste and smell develops, followed by loss of appetite and disinterest in food. By that document’s figure, copper, which is also involved in appetite regulation, is out of balance with zinc in 100% of burnout sufferers. And because zinc is found most abundantly in animal protein, especially beef, eating less meat also means eating less of the mineral these charts already run short of.
Phosphorus carries its own reading. The report calls a low tissue phosphorus an excellent indicator of inadequate protein metabolism, inadequate protein intake, or both, and lists why it so often accompanies a vegetarian diet: too little or poor-quality protein; low hydrochloric acid when sodium and potassium are low; low zinc, because zinc is required for RNA transferase, an enzyme in protein synthesis; and unbound copper, which dissolves the sulfide bonds of proteins.
Why Going Without Meat Feels Better at First
The report lists why the first stretch without meat often brings a lift:
- Less fat temporarily raises the metabolic rate.
- Less zinc from red meat minimizes the distressing symptoms of copper being released from the liver and brain, because zinc enhances the release of tissue-bound copper.
- More dietary copper enhances endorphin secretion, which lowers awareness of the distressing symptoms of adrenal insufficiency and copper toxicity.
- Sugar and starch supply quick energy, and the phosphorus in grains stands in for the phosphorus of meat.
The trouble is what that diet brings with it. The report notes that beans, seeds and nuts are higher in copper and lower in zinc than animal proteins, and that grain phytates bind zinc, calcium and magnesium in the intestine; the bulletin adds that soybeans are high in copper. Over time the report describes a return of sweet cravings, low blood pressure, loss of appetite, intestinal gas and impaired digestion, because the adrenal problem that started it “has merely been palliated, not corrected.”
One Chart From the Bulletin
The bulletin follows John, a 35-year-old artist and vegetarian. Against the lab’s reference values of the time, his hair copper read 5.9 (reference 2.5), his sodium-to-potassium ratio 1.52 (reference 2.5), his calcium 122 (ideal 40), and his calcium-to-magnesium ratio 15.21 (reference 6.67), which the bulletin reads as a diabetic trend. Heavy protein such as meat left him with an uncomfortable, heavy feeling, so he stopped eating it, and over time that diet, together with his high copper, left him protein deficient.
Protein did not come back as steak. Beef and lamb were still too difficult for him to digest, so it returned as eggs, fish and chicken, with hydrochloric acid to support digestion, while the goals for John’s chart were lower calcium, copper at 2.5 and a normal sodium-to-potassium ratio. As his protein intake rose and his digestion improved, the bulletin says, his minerals began to stabilize.
How Much Protein the Ratio Allows
The same bulletin uses the sodium-to-potassium ratio as the measure of how much protein a person can use. An inversion below 2.5:1 indicates impaired capacity to use or synthesize protein, and the more severe the inversion, the less protein can be synthesized. Its general guideline:
| Na/K ratio | Protein share of the diet | Emphasis |
|---|---|---|
| 2.5:1 | 30% | All types acceptable |
| 2.5 to 2.0:1 | 25% | Omit beef and pork; lamb, fish, cheese, eggs |
| 2.0 to 1.5:1 | 20% | Omit beef, lamb and pork; eggs, fish, chicken |
| 1.5 to 1.0:1 | 15% | Chicken, low-fat cheese, grains |
| Under 1.0:1 | 10% | Grains and soybeans |
The bulletin also ranks proteins by specific dynamic action, their potential for raising energy levels: beef; then lamb, pork and eggs; then fish; chicken; cheese; soy; and grains. Removing the animal proteins on that list, it says, removes foods that supply nutrients for producing energy, making enzymes and building tissue. The table scales protein to the ratio; it does not remove it. The research report states that for someone who needs a vegetarian diet, increasing protein intake has been proven beneficial.
The Taste Comes Back
The burnout document gives its evidence in one sentence: as a person recovers from burnout, they reacquire their taste for animal protein. The research report says the same in terms of metabolic rate: as it increases through corrective lifestyle changes, mainly nutritional, an increased desire for animal protein develops.
The bulletin prints a letter from Barbara M., a registered nurse who had been vegetarian for ten years, as an example of how her interest in food changed as her body chemistry improved. In her own words, steak had been one of the most repulsive thoughts imaginable; then she suddenly craved rare steak. She also noted more energy and needing less sleep. The bulletin adds that people who rely on enzymes or hydrochloric acid tablets need them less, or not at all, as adrenal function increases.
It is not quick. The burnout document compares recovery to remodeling a house or rebuilding an engine, done in stages because changing body chemistry too fast creates its own problems, and gives one to five years for complete recovery depending on severity.
Choosing Versus Being Unable
Many people eat no meat for religious or philosophical reasons, and the burnout document notes that other reasons are often given, such as saving money or animal welfare. Its observation is that on careful questioning of many vegetarians, the essential reason was that they could no longer adequately digest meat protein.
A hair chart does not settle that question on its own. The research report says each of these patterns, high copper, low zinc, low phosphorus and a low sodium-to-potassium ratio, can be either a cause or a result of a vegetarian diet. The bulletin’s position is that vegetarianism “must be based on chemistry, not philosophy, for health to be the result,” and the report’s conclusion grants that for certain people, at certain times, it is the best and possibly the only choice until their health improves.
Reading It on Your Own Chart
Hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening tool for nutritional and toxic element trends, not a diagnostic test. For this pattern, the readings to look at are the ones above: zinc against copper, phosphorus, the sodium-to-potassium ratio, and whether the profile sits in slow oxidation. The labs place the calcium-to-phosphorus ideal at 2.5 to 2.6, so a low phosphorus under a high calcium shows in that ratio as well.
It starts with a hair sample you collect at home and mail in, and the stress stages a hair chart reads give the frame this pattern sits inside. The plain-language versions are in my free guides, and how I came to read mineral charts is here.
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This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
